RIVER AND HARBOR IMPROVEMENTS. 



LETTER 

or 

SENATOR DOUGLAS 

TO 

GOVERNOR MATTESON OF ILLINOIS. ! 



"Washington, January 2, 1854. 
Sir : I learn from the public press that you have under consideration the 
proposition to convene the legislature in special session. In the event such a 
step shall be demanded by the public voice and necessities, I desire to invite 
your attention to a subject of great interest to our people, which may require 
legislative action. I refer to the establismcnt of some efficient and permanent 
system for river and harbor improvements. Those portions of the Union most 
deeply interested in internal navigation naturally feel that their interests have 
been neglected, if not paralized, by an uncertain, vasodilating, and partial 
policy. Those who reside upon the banks of the Mississippi, or on the shores 
of the great northern Lakes, and who.se lives and property are frequently ex- 
posed to the mercy of the elements for want of harbors of refuge and means of 
safety, have never been able to comprehend the force of that distinction be- 
tween fresh and salt water, which affirms the power and duty of Congress, 
under the Constitution, to provide security to navigation so far as the tide ebbs 
and flows, and denies the existence of the right beyond the tidal mark. Our 
lawyers may have read in English books that, by the common laws, all waters 
were deemed navigable so far as the tide extended and no further ; but they 
should also have learned from the same authority that the law was founded 
upon reason, and where the reason failed the rule ceased to exist. In England, 
where they have neither lake nor river, nor other water which is, in fact, navi- 
gable, except where the tide rolls its briney wave, it was natural that the law 
should conform to the fact, and establish that as a rule which the experience of 
all men proved to be founded in truth and reason. But it may well be ques- 
tioned whether, if the common law had originated on the shores of Lake Michi- 
gan — a vast inland sea with an average depth of six hundred feet — it would 
have been deemed "not navigable," merely because the tide did not Aoav, and the 
water was fresh and well adapted to the uses and necessities of man. We 
therefore feel authorized to repudiate, as unreasonable and unjust, all injuries' 
discriminations, predicated upon salt water and tidal arguments, and to insist 
that if the power of Congress to protect navigation has any existence in the 
Constitution, it reaches every portion of this Union where the water is in fact 
navigable, and only ceases where the fact fails to exisist. This power has 
been affirmed in some form and exercised to a greater or less extent by each suc- 
cessive Congress, and every administration since the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution. All acts of Congress providing for the erection of light-houses' 
the planting of buoys, the construction of piers, the removal of snags, 



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dredging of channels, the inspection of steamboat boilers, the carrying of 
life boats, in short, all enactments for the security of navigation and the safety 
of life and property within our navigable waters, assert the existence of this 
power and the propriety of its exercise in some form. 

The great and growing interest of navigation is two important to be over- 
looked or disregarded. Mere negative action will not answer. The irregular 
and vascillating policy, which has marked our legislation upon this subject, is 
ruinous. Whenever appropriations have been proposed for river and harbor 
improvements, and especially on the northern lakes and the western rivers, 
there has usually been a death struggle, and a doubtful issue. We have gen- 
erally succeeded with an appropriation once in four or five years ; in other 
words, we have, upon an average, been beaten about four times out of five in 
one house of Congress or the other, or both, or by the presidential veto. -When 
we did succeed, a large portion of the appropriation was expended in providing 
dredging machines and snag boats and other necessary machinery and imple- 
ments ; and by the time the work was fairly begun, the appropriation was ex- 
hausted, and further operations suspended. Failing to procure an additional 
appropriation at the next session, and perhaps for two, three, or four successive 
sessions, the administration has construed the refusal of Congress to provide the 
funds for the prosecution of the works into an abandonment of the system, 
and has accordingly deemed it a duty to sell, at public auction, the dredging 
machines and snag boats, implements and materials on hand for whatever they 
would bring. Soon the country was again startled by the frightful accounts of 
wrecks and explosions, fires and snags upon the rivers, the lakes, and the sea- 
coast. The responsibility of these appalling sacrifices of life and property 
were charged upon those who defeated the appropriations for the prosecution 
of the works. Sympathy was excited, and a concerted plan of aggitation and 
organization formed by the interested sections and parties to bring their com- 
bined influence to bear upon Congress in favor of the re-establishment of the 
system on an enlarged scale, sufficiently comprehensive to embrace the local 
interests and influences in a majority of the congressional districts of the 
Union. A legislative omnibus was formed, in which all sorts of works were 
crowded together, good and bad, wise and foolish, national and local all cram- 
med into one bill, and forced through Congress by the power of an organized 
majority, after the fearful and exhausting struggle of a night session. The bill 
would receive the votes of a majority in each house, not because any one Sen- 
ator or Representative approved all the items contained in it, but for the reason 
that humanity, as well as the stern demands of an injured and suffering con- 
stituency, required that they should make every needful sacrifice of money to 
diminish the terrible loss of human life by the perils of navigation. The result 
was a simple re-enactment of the former scenes. Machinery, implements, and 
materials purchased, the works recommenced — the money exhausted — subse- 
quent appropriations withheld — and the operations suspended, without com- 
pleting the improvements, or contributing materially to the safety of naviga- 
tion. Indeed, it may be well questioned whether, as a general rule, the money 
has been wisely and economically applied, and in many cases whether the ex- 
penditure has been productive of any useful results, beyond the mere distribu- 
tion of so much money among contractors, laborers, and superintendents in the 
favored localities ; and in others, whether it has not been of positive detriment 
to the navigating interest. 

Far be it from my purpose to call in question the integrity, science, or skill 
of those whose professional duty it was to devise the plan and superintend 



the construction of the works. But I do insist that from the nature of their 
profession and their habits of life they could not be expected to possess that 
local knowledge — that knowledge of currents and tides — the effects of storms, 
floods, and ice, always different and ever changing — in each locality of this 
widely-extended country, which is essential in determining upon the proper 
site and plan for an improvement to the navigation. Without depreciating 
the value of science, or disregarding its precepts, I have no hesitation in saying 
that the opinion of an intelligent captain or pilot, who, for a long series of 
years, had sailed out of and into a given port in fair weather and foul, and 
who had carefully and daily watched the changes produced in the channel by 
the currents and storms, wrecks and other obstructions, would inspire me with 
more confidence than that of the most eminent professional gentlemen, whose 
knowledge and science in the line of his profession were only equalled by Ms 
profound ignorance of all those local and practical questions which ought to 
determine the site and plan of the proposed improvement. To me, therefore, 
it is no longer a matter of surprise that errors and blunders occur in the mode 
of constructing the works, and failures and extravagance everywhere appear in 
the expenditure of the money. These evils seem to be inherent in the system ; 
at least, they have thus far proven unavoidable, and have become so palpable 
and notorious that it is worse than folly to close our eyes to their existence. 

In addition to these facts it should be borne in mind that a large and intelli- 
gent portion of the American people, comprising, perhaps, a majority of the 
Democratic party, are in the habit of considering these works as constituting 
a general system of internal improvements by the Federal Government, and 
therefore in violation of the creed of the Democratic party and of the Consti- 
tution of the United States. These two-fold objections — the one denying the 
constitutional power and the other the expediency of appropriations from the 
national treasury — seem to acquire additional strength and force in proportion 
as the importance of the subject is enhanced, and the necessity for more numer- 
ous and extensive improvements is created by the extension of our territory, 
the expansion of our settlements, and the development of the resources of the 
country. As a friend to the navigating interest, and expecially identified by 
all the ties of affection, gratitude, and interest with that section of the Republic 
which is the most deeply interested in internal navigation, I see no hope for 
any more favorable results from national appropriations than we have hereto- 
fore realized. If then we are to judge the system by its results, taking the past 
as a fair indication of what might reasonably be expected in the future, those 
of us who have struggled hardest to render it efficient and useful, are compe- 
tent to confess that it has proven a miserable failure. It is even worse than a 
failure, because, while it has failed to accomplish the desired objects, it has 
had the effect to prevent local and private enterprise from making the im- 
provements under State authority, by holding out the expectation that the 
Federal Government was about to make them. 

By way of illustration, let us suppose that twenty-five years ago, when we 
first began to talk about the construction of railroads in this country, the Fede- 
ral Government had assumed to itself jurisdiction of all works of that descrip- 
tion to the exclusion of State authority and individual enterprise. In that 
event, does any one believe we would now have in the United States fourteen 
thousand miles of railroad completed, and fifteen thousand miles in addition 
under contract. Is it to be presumed, that if our own State had prostrated 
itself in humble supplication at the feet of the Federal Government, and, with 
folded arms, had waited for appropriations from the national treasury, instead 



of exerting State authority, and stimulating and combining individual enter- 
prise, we should now have in Illinois three thousand miles of railroad in process 
of construction? Let the history of internal improvements by the Federal Gov- 
ernment be fairly written, and it will furnish conclusive answers to these inter- 
rogatories. For more than a quarter of a century the energies of the national 
government, together with all the spare funds in the treasmy, were directed to 
the construction of a McAdamized road from Cumberland, in the State of Mary- 
land, to Jefferson city, in the State of Missouri, without being able to complete 
one-third of the work. If the Government were unable to make three hundred 
miles of turnpike road in twenty-five years, how long would it take to con- 
struct a railroad to the Pacific ocean, and to make all the harbor and river 
improvements necessary to protect our widely extended and rapidly increasing 
commerce on a seacoast so extensive, that in forty years we have not been able 
to complete even the survey of one-half of it, and on a lake and river naviga- 
tion more than four times as extensive as that seacoast ? These questions are 
worthy of the serious consideration of those who think that improvements 
should be made for the benefit of the present generation as well as for our 
remote posterity; for I am not aware that the Federal Government ever com- 
pleted any work of internal improvement commenced under its auspices. 

The operations of the Government have not been sufficiently rapid to keep 
pace with the spirit of the age. The Cumberland road, when commenced, may 
have been well adopted to the purposes for which it was designed ; but after 
the lapse of a quarter of a century, and before any considerable portion of it 
could be finished, the whole was superseded and rendered useless by the intro- 
duction of the railroad system. One reason, and perhaps the principal cause, 
of tue siuw progress of ail hnprftvemeats'j e&naisfcs in the feet tfea* 

the appropriation for any one object is usually too small to be of material ser- 
vice. It may be sufficient for the commencement of the work, but before it 
can be completed, or even so far advanced as to withstand the effects of storms, 
and floods, and the elements, the appropriation is exhausted, and a large por- 
tion of the work swept away before funds can be obtained for finishing it or 
even protecting that which has been done. The ruinous consequences of these 
small appropriations are well understood and seriously deprecated, but they 
arise from the necessity of the case, and constitute some of the evils inscperable 
from the policy. All experience proves that Ijke numberless items . of a river 
and harbor or internal improvement bill cannot pass, each by itself, and upon 
its own merits, and that the friends of particular works will not allow appro- 
priations to be made for the completion of others which are supposed to be of 
paramount importance, unless theirs are embraced in the same bill. Each 
member seems to think the work in his own district to be of the sternest neces- 
sity and highest importance, and hence feels constrained to give his own the 
^preference, or to defeat any bill which does not include it. The result is a 
legislative omnibus, in which all manner of objects are crowded together indis- 
criminately; and as there never is and never can be money enough in the 
treasury to make adequate appropriations for the whole, and as the bill can- 
not pass unless each has something, of course the amount for each item must 
"be reduced so low as to make it of little or no service, and thus render the 
whole bid almost a total loss. In this manner a large portion of our people 
have been kept in a state of suspense and anxiety for more than half a century 
with their hopes always excited and their expectations never realized. 

I repeat that the policy heretofore persued has proven worse than a failure. 
if we expect to provide facilities and >: securities for our navigating interests > 



we must adopt a system commensurate -with our wants — one which will be just 
and equal in its operations upon lake, river, and ocean -wherever the water is 
navigable, fresh or salt, tide or no tide — a system which will not depend for its 
success upon the dubious and fluctuating issues of political campaigns and 
congressional combinations — one which will be certain, uniform, and unvarying 
in its results. I know of no system better calculated to accomplish these objects 
than that which commanded the approbation of the founders of the Republic, wa s 
successively adopted on various occasions since that period, and directly referred 
to in the message of the President. It is evidently the system contemplated by 
the fratners of the Constitution when they incorperated into that instrument 
the clause in relation to tonnage duties by the States with the assent of Con- 
gress. The debates show that this provision was inserted for the express pur- 
pose of enabling the States to levy duties of tonnage to make harbor and other 
improvements for the benefit of navigation. It was objected that the power to 
regulate commerce having already been vested exclusively in Congress, the 
jurisdiction of the States over harbor and river improvements, without the 
consent or supervision of the Federal Government, might be so exercised as to r 
conflict with the congressional regulations in respect to commerce. In order 
to avoid this objection, and at the same time reserve to the States the power 
of making the necessary improvements, consistent with such rules as should be 
prescribed by Congress for the regulation of commerce, the provision was 
modified and' adopted in the form in which we now find it in the Constitution, 
to wit : " no State shall lay duties of tonnage except by the consent of Congress." 
It is evident from the debates that the framers of the Constitution looked to 
tonnage duties as the source from which funds were to be derived for im. 
provements in navigation. The only diversity of opinion among them arose 
upon the point, whether those duties should be levied and the works 
constructed by the Federal Government or under state authority. These 
doubts were solved by the clause quoted, providing, in effect, that while the 
power was reserved to the States, it should not be exercised, except by the 
consent of Congress, in order that the local legislation for the improvement of 
navigation might not conflict with the general enactment for the regulation of 
commerce. Yet the first Congress, which assembled under the Constitution, 
commenced that series of contradictory and partial enactments which has con- 
tinued to the present time, and proven the fruitful source of conflict and dis. 
sention. 

The first of these acts provided that all expenses for the support of lighthouses 
beacons, buoys, and public piers, should be paid out of the national treasury, on 
the condition that the States in which the same should be situated respectively, 
should cede to the United States the said works, "together with the lands and 
tenements thereunto belonging, and together with the jurisdiction of the same." 
A few months afterwards the same Congress passed an act consenting that the 
States of Rhode Island, Maryland, and Georgia, might lev^v tonnage duties for 
the purpose of improving certain harbors and rivers within their respective 
limits. This contradictory legislation upon a subject of great national import- 
ance, although commenced by the first Congress, and frequently suspended and 
renewed at uncertain and irregular periods, seems never to have been entirely 
abandoned. While appropriations from the national treasury have been par- 
tial and irregular — sometimes granted and at others withheld — stimulating 
hopes only to be succeeded by disappointments, tonnage duties have also been 
•ollectcd by the consent of Congress, at various times and for limited periods, 
in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, 



Alabama, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and perhaps other States. Indeed there 
has never been a time, since the Declaration of Independence, when tonnage 
duties have not been collected under State authority for the improvement of 
rivers or harbors or both. The last act giving the consent of Congress to the 
collection of these duties, was passed for the benefit of the port of Baltimore in 
1850, and will not expire until 1861. 

Thus it will be seen that the proposition to pass a general law giving the 
consent of Congress to the imposition of tonnage duties according to a uni- 
form rule, and upon equal terms in all the States and territories of the Union, 
does not contemplate the introduction of a new principle into our legislation 
upon this subject. It only proposes to convert a partial and fluctuating policy 
into a permanent and efficient system. 

If this proposition should receive the sanction of Congress, and be carried 
into successful operation by the States, it would withdraw river and harbor 
improvements from the perils of the political arena, and commit them to the 
fostering care of the local authorities, with a steady and unceasing source of 
revenue for their prosecution. The system would be plain, direct, and simple, 
in respect to harbor improvements. Each town and city would have charge of 
the improvements in its own harbor, and would be authorized to tax its own 
commerce to the extent necessary for its construction. The money could be 
applied to no other object than the improvement of the harbor; and no higher 
duties could be levied then were necessary for that purpose. There would 
seem to be no danger of the power being abused, for in addition to the restric- 
tions, limitations, and conditions, which should be embraced in the laws con- 
fering the consent of Congress, self-interest will furnish adequate and ample 
assurances and motives for the faithful execution of the trusts. If any town, 
whose harbor needs improvement, should fail to impose the duties and make 
the necessary works, such neglect would inevitably tend to drive the commerce 
to some rival port, which would use all the means in its power to render its 
harbor safe and commodious, and afford all necessary protection and facilities 
to navigation and trade. If, on the other hand, any place should attempt to 
impose higher duties than will be absolutely necessary for the contraction of the 
requisite improvements, this line of policy, to the extent of the excess, would 
have the same deleterious effects upon its prosperity. The same injurious in- 
fluences would result from errors and blunders in the plan of the work, or from 
extravagance and corruption in the expenditure of the money. Hence each 
locality, and every citizen and person interested therein, would have a direct 
and personal interest in the adoption of a wise plan, and in securing strict 
economy and entire fidelity in the expenditure of the money. While upon the 
rivers the plan of operations would not be so direct and simple as in the im- 
provement of harbors, yet even there it is not perceived that any serious incon- 
venience or obstacle would arise to the success of the system. It would be 
necessary that the law, which shall grant the consent of Congress to the im- 
position of the duties, shall also give a like consent in conformity with the 
same provision of *the Constitution, that where the river to be improved, shall 
form the boundary of, or be situated in, two or more States, such States may enter 
into compact with each other, by which they may, under their joint authority, 
levy the duties and improve the navigation. 

In. this manner Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey could enter into a 
compact for the improvement of the Delaware river, by which each would appoint 
one commissioner, and the three commissioners constitute a board, which 
would levy the duties, prescribe the mode of their collection, devise the plan 



i 

of the improvement, and superintend the expenditure of the money. The six 
States bordering on the Ohio river, in lite manner, could each appoint a com- 
missioner, and the six constitute a board for the improvement of the naviga- 
tion of that river from Pittsburg to the Mississippi. The same plan could be 
applied to the Mississippi, by which the nine States bordering upon that 
stream could each appoint one commissioner, and the nine form a board for 
the removal of snags and other obstructions in the channel from the Falls of 
St. AnthoDy to the Gulf of Mexico. There seems to be no difficulty, therefore, 
in the execution of the plan where the water course lies in two or more States, 
or forms the boundary thereof in whole or in part ; and where the river is 
entirely within the limits of any one State, like the Illinois or Alabama, it 
may be improved in such manner as the legislature may prescribe, subject only 
to such conditions and limitations as may be contained in the act of Congress 
giving its consent. All the necessities and difficulties upon this subject seem 
to have been foreseen and provided for in the same clause of the Constitution, 
wherein it is declared, in effect, that, with the consent of Congress, tonnage 
duties may be levied for the improvement of rivers and harbors, and that the 
several States may enter into compacts with each other for that purpose when- 
ever it shall become necessaiy, subject only to such rules as Congress shall pre- 
scribe for the regulation of commerce. 

It only remains for me to notice some of the objections which have been 
urged to this system. It has been said that tonnage duties are taxes upon, the 
commerce of the country, which must be paid in the end by the consumers of 
the articles bearing the burden. I do not feel disposed to question the sound- 
ness of this proposition. I presume the same is true of all the duties, tolls, and 
charges upon all public works — whether constructed by government or indi- 
viduals. The State of New York derives a revenue of more than two millions 
of dollars a year from her canals. Of course this is a tax upon the commerce 
of the country, and is borne by those who are interested in and benefitted by 
it. This tax is a blessing or a burden, dependent upon the fact whether it has 
the effect to diminish or increase the cost of transportation. If we could not 
have enjoyed the benefit of the canal without the payment of the tolls, and if, 
by its construction and the payment, the cost of transportation has been re- 
duced to one-tenth the sum which we would have been compelled to have paid 
without it, who would not be willing to make a still further contribution to 
the security and facilities of navigation, if thereby the price of freights are to 
be reduced in a still greater ratio. The tolls upon our own canal are a tax 
upon commerce, yet we cheerfully submit to the payment for the reason that 
they were indispensible to the construction of a great work, which has had the 
effect to reduce the cost of transportation between the Lakes and the Missis- 
sippi, far below what it would have been if the canal had not been made. All ' 
the charges on the fourteen thousand miles of railroad now in operation in the 
different States of this Union, are just so many taxes upon commerce and travel, 
yet we do not repudiate the whole railroad system on that account, nor object 
to the payment of such reasonable charges as are necessary to defray the ex- 
penses of constructing and operating them. But it may be said that if all the 
railroads and canals were built with funds from the national treasur}-, and were 
then thrown open to the uses of commerce and travel free of charge, the rates 
of transportation would be less than they now are. It may be that the rates 
of transportation would be less, but would our taxes be reduced thereby ? No 
matter who is entrusted with the construction of the works, somebody must 
foot the bill . If the Federal Government undertake to make railroads and 



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canals, and river and harbor improvements, somebody must pay the expenses. 
In order to meet this enlarged expenditure, it would be necessary to augment 
the revenue by increased taxes upon the commerce of the country. The whole 
volume of revenue which now fills and overflows the national treasury, with the 
exception of the small item resulting from the sales of public lands, is derived 
from a system of taxes imposed upon commerce and collected through the ma- 
chinery of the custom-houses. No matter, therefore, whether these works are 
made hj the Federal Government, or by stimulating and combining local and 
individual enterprise under State authority : in any event they remain a tax 
upon commerce to the extent of the expenditure. 

That system which will insure the construction of the improvements upon 
the best plan and at the smallest cost will prove the least oppressive to the 
tax-payer and the most useful to commerce. It requires no argument to prove — 
for every day's experience teaches us — that public works of every description 
can be made at a much smaller cost by private enterprise, or by the local 
authorities directly interested in the improvement, than when constructed by 
the Federal Government. Hence, inasmuch as the expenses of constructing 
river and harbor improvements must, under either plan, be defrayed by a tax 
upon commerce in the first instance, and finally up^on the whole people inter- 
ested in that commerce, I am of the opinion that the burdens would be less 
under the system referred to in the message than by appropriations from the 
Federal treasury. Those who seem not to have understood the difference have 
attempted to excite prejudice against this plan for the improvement of navi- 
gations by comparing it to the burdens imposed upon the navigation of the 
Rhine, the Elb, the Oder, and other rivers running through the German States. 
The people residing upon those rivers did not complain that they were required 
to pay duties for the improvement of their navigation. Such was not the fact. 
No duties were imposed for any such purpose. No improvements in the navi- 
gation were ever made or contemplated by those who exacted the tolls. Taxes 
were extorted from the navigating interest by the petty sovereigns through 
whose dominions the rivers run, for the purpose of defraying the expenses of 
the pomp, and ceremonies, and follies of vicious and corrupt courts. The com- 
plaint was, that grievous and unnecessary burdens were imposed on navigation 
without expending any portion of the money for its protection and improve- 
ment, Their complaints were just. They should have protested, if- they had 
lived under a government where the voice of the people could be heard, against 
the payment of any more or higher tolls than were necessary for the improve- 
ment of the navigation, and have insisted that the funds collected should be 
applied to that purpose and none other In short, a plan similar to the one now 
proposed would have been a full and complete redress of all their grievances 
upon this subject. 

In conclusion, I will state that my object in addressing you this communica- 
tion is to invite your especial attention to so much of the President's message 
as relates to river and harbor improvements, with the view that when the 
legislature shall assemble, either in special or general session, the subject may 
be distinctly submitted to their consideration for such action as the great inter- 
ests of commerce may demand. 

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your friend and fellow-citizen, 

S. A. DOUGLAS. 

Joel A. Matteson, 

Governor of the State of Illinois. 



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020 228 7« 3 



